


Tell Everyone That There's Hope In Your Heart

by ladyknightley



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-06 01:19:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5397521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyknightley/pseuds/ladyknightley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bill and Fleur enjoy--in some ways--the first Christmas post-war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Everyone That There's Hope In Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Mentions of Fred's death. The title is from 'When the Thames Froze' by Smith & Burrows; another favourite of mine.

“Heads up, breakfast!”

Fleur groaned loudly, covering her head with a pillow. Her husband responded by pulling the duvet off the bed, and she shrieked in horror. “Wakey wakey,” Bill said cheerfully, opening the curtains as she rearranged the duvet back around her, fluffing up the pillows with a scowl on her face.

“It’s the weekend! I deserve a lie-in,” she grumped.

“You definitely need your beauty sleep,” agreed Bill, and she pulled a face, taking the tray he’d been levitating and pouring herself a large mug of coffee. “You have a letter from your mother,” he added, as she buttered toast for him.

He climbed back into the bed, taking the _Prophet_ as she opened her letter. They ate breakfast in silence, each immersed in their own thoughts, but she hooked her ankle over his, and he occasionally reached over to brush her hair out of the way of her mouth. After a few moments, she folded the parchment in half and placed it back on the tray, sipping her coffee thoughtfully.

“Any exciting news?” Bill asked.

“Much gossip,” Fleur said, “and Gabrielle finishes at Beauxbatons for Christmas next week.”

“Early, this year,” he said.

“It ees,” Fleur sighed. “Maman wondered if she might come to visit for a little while, as we shall not be there until the New Year.”

“She could come and stay,” Bill said, “we’ve got the room, and we could book some extra holiday from work and go—”

“No,” Fleur said firmly, “no. It would be nice, but...maybe next year. It ees too...much, still.” Bill nodded slowly. She was right. It was all too much. Still.

“What ees in the paper?”

“Not a huge amount,” he said. “Mostly about the Yaxley trial. Ron said that they’d hoped to have that over before Christmas, but it’s looking like it won’t even start until January now. The _Prophet_ is banging on about fresh evidence, new witnesses or some nonsense. But I reckon that’s just a front; the Yaxleys are one of the richest families in the country. If anyone can buy their way out of it, they can.”

“Yaxley,” Fleur frowned. “Zhat name ees familiar...”

“He’s accused of the murder of that muggle family in Tinworth,” Bill said darkly. “Back in January, when—”

“We saw the Dark Mark from up here,” Fleur finished. “Yes, I remember.” There was a pause, and he knew she was thinking, too, of that awful night. Almost a year ago, now. It was amazing how, despite the horrors, the world kept turning.

“I think zhat per’aps it was the best decision, Gabrielle staying in France,” Fleur said, after a moment.

“I’m sure it would be fine, now, but better safe than sorry,” he agreed. “And besides, we’ll be there for the New Year.”

“And for two weeks at Easter,” Fleur said. “And I am so looking forward to showing you France in the springtime, it ees the most beautiful time, and we shall visit Paris, and _la ferme de mon oncle_ —”

“It will be lovely, I’m sure,” Bill said, cutting her off as she started gibbering away in French, “but I’m sorry we won’t she your family before Christmas.”

“Well,” Fleur said lightly, “it ees nice to be in England.” Bill raised an eyebrow. “For example, where in France I could get such an overcooked turkey as will be at your muzzer’s, I do not know.”

He fought hard not to smile, remembering the guilt he felt. This would be the third year of keeping her with him, of the two of them staying in Britain instead of visiting her family, but every year, it felt like they had less and less of a choice.

First there had been the year he had spent most of his free time trailing Remus Lupin as he followed the werewolves, like a bizarre kind of foreshadowing of what was to come. They’d spent a truly grim Christmas Day at The Burrow, and he’d thought that couldn’t be topped for its anti-festivities, but then last year Ron had turned up and demanded to be hidden, then vanished on Christmas morning, and all the while war was raging and travel was unsafe and he’s thought _that_ would be it, that no Christmas would ever be any worse, but then this year would be the first Christmas when his baby brother wouldn’t be there because he was dead; the first where friends were gone, too, and his family was torn in two, the first when it really, truly wouldn’t be Christmas.

And she stood stoically by him, despite it all. He really had lucked out with her.

“What would we do, if we were in France?” he asked.

Her eyes lit up. “Well. There would be the largest Christmas tree, bigger than anything you would ’ave ’ere, of course.”

“Of course.”

“And we should all place our shoes by the fireplace on Christmas night, and if you are good, _le Père Noël_ shall come and leave your presents there, but of course we shall go to Midnight Mass first, where there will be many many overexcited children, and it shall snow—”

“You’ll put in a special request with the weatherman, will you?”

“Of course,” she replied, looking affronted. “And the food—I shall make for you this year _une bûche de Noël_ , and it shall be glorious, much better than this “Christmas pudding” monstrosity you English insist upon—”

“Is there anything we can do right?” Bill asked, amused.

Fleur considered this for a long moment. “Well,” she said. “There ees a beautiful winter cloak I ’ave seen in Diagon Alley, if you were to purchase that for my Christmas present, I should consider that “doing right”. But only if you managed to pick the correct size, and I want it to be in the pale lilac colour, which I know some would say ees impractical but—”

“Alright alright,” Bill said, laughing. “I’ve taken the hint, thank you.”

“It ees not an ’int, it ees an instruction,” she said firmly. “And today, we said we would go to Diagon Alley shopping.”

“We did?” asked Bill, who had visions of a packed London street filled with argumentative children and stressed parents and could not imagine ever having agreed to go there.

“We need to buy Christmas presents for all of your family,” she answered. She stopped herself just in time from making an ill-thought-out remark about how many of them there were; this would be the first year with no Fred, the reason they were staying in England.

“Socks,” he said firmly. “Socks for everybody.”

Fleur harrumphed. “We still ’ave to go to Diagon Alley today, even just to buy socks for everyone.”

“Oh, goody.”

“But,” she added, trying to sound cheerful, “if we get up now, we can be back ’ere by lunchtime, and then this afternoon, we can go to buy the biggest Christmas tree you ’ave ever—well, maybe not the biggest. I do not think it would fit through the door, although maybe with an engorgement charm—”

“Are you trying to tempt me into Christmas shopping with the promise of buying a tree afterwards? I’m not five, you know,” Bill said. “And I’ve made the mistake of going shopping with you before now: “back by lunch!” We’ll be lucky to be back before the New Year!”

She harrumphed again, sounding very French. “All I thought was zhat we should make an _effort_ to be festive, because our ’ome ees extremely lacking in the Christmas—”

“Do you,” he interrupted, rolling over in bed having vanished their breakfast things with a wave of his wand, “know how much I love you for staying here for Christmas?” He picked up her hands, placing them on his face, and Fleur’s fingers reached upwards, stroking the scars that criss-crossed his skin gently.

“It was a joke,” she said eventually. “I did not mean to upset...I know that this Christmas will be ’ard. It was meant to be a joke.”

“I know,” he said quickly, “I know you were kidding. But I mean it. I know you would rather be in France. And I love you even more for staying here.”

“Idiot,” she said, half smiling. “I would most like to be in France for Christmas, yes, because that would mean we should see all of my family. But we shan’t, and I shall be with you, and that shall be enough.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, because they might be married, but he still wondered, sometimes.

“Of course,” she replied, almost before his question was out. She’d never sounded so certain.

“You’re right, though,” he said. “We _do_ need to get a Christmas tree. Maybe not the biggest one ever, though.”

“’Ow about,” she suggested, “we get a normal sized one, for downstairs. And then we ’ave another small one, for our room.”

Bill rolled over so his head was in her lap, but even upside down, she could read the look he was giving her. “We cannot,” he said, “have a tree in our room.”

“And why not?” she asked at once. “You said yourself, Christmas shall be different this year. Why not go all the way? Make it totally different. Decorate _all_ the rooms!”

“We’re not having a tree in the bathroom,” he said. “It’s small enough as it is, and can you imagine the mess from the needles? Besides, where would it go? In the shower? You’d have pine needles up your bum every time you tried to shower, and—”

“Okay,” she said, “we shall not ’ave a bathroom-tree. But we can ’ave a bedroom-tree, _non_?”

“I hate when you do that.”

“Do what?” she asked innocently.

“Make me agree to something through trickery and treachery.”

She ran her fingers through his hair. “I can’t think what you mean.”

Outside, a gull cried. “We should get up,” he said.

“Mmm.”

“Go to Diagon Alley, get socks for everyone, come home, buy a forest...”

“It sounds good,” Fleur murmured. She moved further down the bed herself, his head now on her chest rather than her lap and she leaned down and kissed his forehead. “A lovely Christmassy day.”

“Mmm,” he said, twisting upwards to kiss her lips. “Just what we need, really.”

She smiled, kissing him back again, then again.

“Orrr,” he said slowly, “we could stay in bed a while longer.” He pulled her fully into his arms, then down on top of him, and they exchanged matching smirks.

“It could very well work,” she agreed.

Wherever they spent this Christmas—England, France, on the moon—it wouldn’t feel right. It was the first Christmas without Fred, the first without so many others, and although things were getting better, they were nowhere near healed, yet. But wherever they were, it would be okay, as long as they were together.


End file.
